IPL 2017 Auction: New-look Rising Pune Supergiants empty purse on Ben Stokes

A day before the IPL Auction 2017, RPS made big news when they made a big statement by sacking Dhoni as the team skipper, and they continued to do so even on the auction day, despite making just two buys.

A day before the IPL Auction 2017, Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) made big news when they made a big statement by sacking MS Dhoni as the team skipper, and they continued to do so even on the auction day at Bengaluru, despite making just two buys. RPS emptied INR 14.50 crore on English all-rounder Ben Stokes, and the other purchase they made was Jaydev Unadkat. On Sunday, RPS named Australian skipper Steven Smith as Dhoni’s replacement. The team owner Sanjiv Goenka is a result-oriented man it seems. He announced, “Dhoni as not stepped down. We have appointed Steve Smith as the skipper for the upcoming season. Frankly speaking, we did not have a good last season and we wanted someone young to lead the side and revamp it ahead of season 10.” LIVE UPDATES of IPL Auction 2017

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Delhi Daredevils (DD) and even Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) had made several bids for Stokes but the Pune side desperately wanted the English all-rounder, who had a base price of INR 2 crore. Stokes has now fetched most money by any foreign player in IPL auctions ever. Dearth of a quality all-rounder was Pune’s Achilles Heel last season. Dhoni did not place enough faith on Irfan Pathan. They lost Mitchell Marsh to an injury and Thisara Perera was disappointing.

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The other purchase that RPS made was Unadkat. The left-arm seamer from Saurashtra was bagged for INR 30 lakhs. He had played the last season for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The total purse remaining for RPS is only INR 2.7 crore and their need of the hour is quality domestic batsman and all-rounders.

RPS updated squad: Steven Smith (c), MS Dhoni (wk), Jaydev Unadkat, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rajat Bhatia, Mitchell Marsh, Ajinkya Rahane, Ben Stokes, Jaydev Unadkat, Adam Zampa, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Sharma, Deepak Chahar, Ishwar Pandey, Faf du Plessis, Baba Aparajith, Usman Khawaja, Jaskaran Singh, Ankush Bains, Ashok Dinda.